Carry Duty
by oleanderedits
Summary: Daryl's acting weird and Tara has make Rick understand why.


"What's wrong with Daryl?" Rick asked, hand going up to shade his eyes as he peered across the broken asphalt to where Daryl paced near their truck like he was expecting to be jumped at any moment despite Michonne, Rosita, Sasha, and Jesus watching the perimeter while the rest of the group loaded supplies. Daryl was supposed to be going back and forth from the old warehouse entrance to the truck with a load each time, same as Tara and Carl and while Rick coordinated with Aaron to get the goods moved to the door. It was a standard large-scale run with only the addition of the Hilltop representative so they could divide their find between the communities. Usually Daryl was on point and fast with the back and forth, but today he'd barely taken five loads out and seemed to linger longer at the truck after each one.

Tara looked between Rick and Daryl and shrugged, "Nothing. I don't see anything wrong."

"He's acting spooked," he said, then moved his hands to cup his mouth, getting ready to call over to his brother.

Tara's eyes widened and she immediately lunged forward to grab Rick by the arm and push his hands down, hissing a low warning, "No! Don't!" Rick, of course, just stared at her like she'd gone crazy. And as Aaron walked up and looked between them with a questioning glance, she pulled her hands away and took a deep breath. "Daryl's fine. Just let him be, okay? Look, he's coming back."

Whatever was going on, Aaron seemed to get it because his face was suddenly split with a large grin he felt he had to hide as he turned to hurry off to get another load.

"Don't say anything when he gets here," Tara warned Rick with a hiss before she pulled back and almost theatrically started rubbing her shoulder and letting out a low moan of pain when Daryl got into hearing range. She twisted her waist and gave the man a big, pained smile, "Daryl? Could you carry this one out for me? It's a little too heavy for me. I'll take the next the one, okay?"

Daryl didn't seem to notice how fake she was being and his eyebrows shot up, opening his expression as he gave a soft, "Sure, I can do that."

And then he did the oddest thing. He bent at the waist in what Rick could only think of as an exaggerated motion to pick up the box. It was the size most people would carry with both arms, just to be careful, and Daryl usually would have. But today he hoisted it onto one shoulder and held it almost casually. Like it weighed nothing. Then he started back towards the truck.

Rick watched him for a bit before turning to Tara, expression making it obvious he wanted to know what that was all about. Tara grinned at him, put a finger to her mouth, and then pointed back at Daryl. Rick rolled his eyes, getting more than a little annoyed as he turned back to watch just in time to see Jesus's patrol path cross near to Daryl's and the two stop to talk for a moment.

Rick couldn't see Daryl's face, blocked as it was by the box, but Jesus was smiling and laughing at something for a couple moments before he got back on his way and the two parted. Rick started to turn back to Tara, but her hand on his face pushed for him to keep watching. He was getting more frustrated by the second.

However, had she not kept him looking, he would have missed how Daryl spun around and started walking backwards, eyes following Jesus until it looked like Jesus was turning around. At which point, Daryl shot back around, his shoulders straighter and his head a bit higher. His free arm slowly curling outward from his side in a long stretch that ended with him curling it up towards his head and looking for a moment like he was flexing before it dropped back down. The whole time this happened, Jesus was shooting glances backwards with only the occasional one spared for where he was going.

Daryl managed to get the box to the truck and turned around to push himself into by hopping up on it. Giving himself an excuse to look at where Jesus was for a quick minute and see if the man was still in sight. Rick's eyes traced Jesus as the man turned back to his duties, grinning to himself as he disappeared around the corner. Then Rick's gaze shot back to Daryl who stood in the truck with his arms crossed, leaning to the side until Rick could only assume Jesus was fully out of his sight. Only then did Daryl move the box in where it needed to be, taking his sweet time 'organizing' the load he'd already organized a half dozen times before he hopped out of the truck and started his pacing once more.

Tara's hand had left Rick's cheek at some point and when he turned to look at her, she wasn't even trying to fight her grin.

She shrugged, "See? Just fine."

Rick blinked a couple times before bringing one hand up to pinch his nose, "Next time we have a run like this, remind me to put them both on carry duty."


End file.
